Emotional Transition

My wife and I were trading in our old van for a new SUV. Krystle, my 9-year-old daughter, emotionally attached to our old van, was crying hysterically over the thought of never seeing it again. She wouldn't even get out of the van to look at our new car. I opened the door of the new SUV and pointed to the TV/VCR combination that I had purchased for her (actually, I purchased it for my own piece of mind while driving). Suddenly, she jumped out of our van with a smile on her face from ear to ear, as happy as could be, and started playing with her new TV. It amazed me how quickly the human mind can change emotions.

The same sort of emotional transitions take place at the poker table. Players go on emotional rampages and full tilt, and throw chips off right and left. Then they win a big pot and are happy as a clam. They start to play well again, or at least more toward the best of their abilities – until they get sucked out on again, anyway.

Much of poker is a mental game. The ability to handle the swings and stresses of the game is fundamental to becoming a great player. I've seen many players with world-class abilities never beat the game due to emotional instability within themselves. If you can't keep your head together under adversity, you might as well get yourself a job – a good one – if you are going to continue to play poker, because you are just going to mess up your life in a poker room. Just like my daughter changing her frame of mind, you need the ability to be able to change your frame of mind, to adjust your viewpoint based on new data and changing situations. You must be in control of yourself mentally and develop the ability to put yourself in the mental frame of mind necessary to play winning poker consistently.

Some players seem to go on tilt as a means of expressing the unfairness of their situations. They have a sense of fairness and an expectation of equity in the poker game they are playing. They assume that justice will prevail, and that the cards will break even and they will beat the "idiots" they are currently losing to. These players tend to get angry and go on tilt when their "good" starting hands don't hold up. Their perception is poor, shortsighted, and weak. They really don't understand the fluid dynamics of the game, the idea that the value of their holding changes and that randomness requires them to be emotionally stable.

When these players don't get what they perceive to be a "fair break" from the deck, an emotional reaction ensues that furthers their bad fortune. Few things in life are, in fact, fair. Poker, however, is one of them. Those who are supposed to go broke, do go broke. Those who are supposed to win, do in fact win. Yeah, sometimes it takes a lot of time for expectation to sort itself out, but there is real justice at the poker table. What that justice is may be a surprise to many players, but if they wait, it will happen. If you genuinely believe that justice will prevail, you will eliminate a great deal of mental anguish and dramatically reduce the bad play that comes from frustration.

Frankly, when the cards break even, a lot of people who are expecting good things are likely to be really surprised.

I'm an emotional guy. Few people who know me only from the poker table sense that. I learned early in my poker career that my emotional reactions were very detrimental to my game. They cost me lots of bets back in my Seattle days, both because of my decision-making capabilities when angered and my giving off tells to my opponents. I conditioned myself to suppress my emotions at the table. I gave talks to myself when I started to feel that I was getting emotional, took walks, and conditioned myself not to show any emotions that I was feeling. I focused on changing my mindset when I felt myself starting to lose control. Over time, my mind conditioned itself to handle the stresses of poker. It bred confidence in my game, furthering my emotional control. Confidence breeds success, which breeds confidence, and they continuously compound each other.

I believe in self-talk, constantly telling myself the things I need to do and how I am going to react. It creates the right mindset, conditions my mind to react in the manner that is best for the task at hand, and improves my decisions and keeps me in emotional control. Often when I am having a conversation with myself, I look up and find people looking at me rather strangely.

As children, we have all had strong emotional reactions that we could not control, like Krystle wailing about our selling the van. Those same emotions exist in us as adults. Hopefully in the growing-up process, we have learned to control and handle them with a sense of maturity. Some people never seem to be able to get a handle on it. Maybe it's chemical and maybe it's environmental, but those who don't shouldn't be sitting at a poker table. They're better off waiting for Mommy and Daddy to buy them a nice new SUV with a TV in the back – although that's probably not too likely, either.

Editor's note: Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas – please see his ad on Page 115.